


Like Plate Tectonics

by Iambic



Category: White Collar
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:43:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambic/pseuds/Iambic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just when you move into place, suddenly it's all different, and you keep moving. Even if you never wanted anything to change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Plate Tectonics

Neal went out in a blaze of glory, one last grand romantic gesture. The bullets tore through him from all sides, and he was dead before he hit the ground. It was enough to give the FBI the upper hand. Somewhere along the way Peter went into autopilot, following protocol, and his mind shut down except for the standard procedure he knew so well, and he thought only in steps until the cars were driving away with the whole group apprehended. He was hearing over and over the two words "agent down". They were going to drive him insane.

He made it home somehow that evening, not even realising how much blood stained his jacket and shirt and face and hair until he saw himself in the mirror and Elizabeth saw him and gasped. That's where they are now.

"Peter?" she asks, and she's got to know exactly what's wrong, because she's always known him better than he knows himself. Peter just tears his eyes away from his bloody reflection and begs her silently not to ask, just to take things as they look. He's not sure he can deal with explaining things to Elizabeth of all people. She knows best just why this would break him.

"Oh god," she says, and her eyes go wide, and then she's surging forward and wrapping her arms around him, and Peter just holds on and breathes her in and tells himself that this, this is what he has left, this is what isn't ever going to change.

But he's thinking of Neal, and he's remembering that one night that Elizabeth held them both in place on the couch, a hand on Peter's right wrist and Neal's left, told them not to leave until they could promise to be careful and mean it. Then she'd kissed them both on the mouth and pushed them out the door. They were supposed to be three. It was how they worked best. He and Elizabeth had _changed_ to accommodate Neal, and they'd changed for the _better_. It can't be gone now. It can't be over.

But denial's never going to change the sound of Neal's body hitting the cement.

Peter needs to say something, or move out of the doorway, get the blood off of him. He can't. He can't even bring himself to move except where Elizabeth does, while she rocks him back and forth and Neal stays laid out somewhere, growing stiff and cold and dry.


End file.
